Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami Original Prints for Sale

Takashi Murakami,  (born Feb. 1, 1962, Tokyo, Japan), is a Japanese artist and entrepreneur widely recognized for his ability to adapt the aesthetics of Japanese traditional art to operate within the context of popular culture.

Murakami studied Japanese painting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1986 and a Ph.D. in 1993. After completing his studies, he increasingly displayed his works in solo and group exhibitions, making his European debut in 1995 in “TransCulture,” held at the 46th Venice Biennale. The following year Murakami’s paintings and sculptures were featured most notably at the second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia.

Trained in traditional Japanese art, Murakami saw similarities between the flat composition of Japanese painting and the simplified aesthetics of anime and manga (Japanese comics). His style, which emphasized two-dimensional forms and bold, striking imagery, gave birth to an artistic movement known as Superflat hich not only acknowledged but glorified the interaction between the commercial and art worlds. After curating an exhibition in 2002 at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, Murakami collaborated in 2003 with Marc Jacobs, artistic director of the Louis Vuitton fashion house, to produce fashion accessories. He earned celebrity status in May 2003 when his Miss Ko2 (pronounced “ko ko”)—a life-size fibreglass sculpture of a large-breasted blonde waitress in a petite uniform—was auctioned in New York City for $567,500; the price set a record for a work by a contemporary Japanese artist.

By 2005 Murakami had been dubbed the Japanese Warhol and had reached a new level of success in his career as artist, curator, product designer, theorist, and entrepreneur. At the Japan Society Gallery in New York City, he curated the exhibition “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture.” Featuring the work of young Japanese artists, the show examined the otaku (“geek”) movement propelling anime and manga—two industries at the heart of Japanese popular culture. Also in 2005 Murakami displayed his monumental sculpture Tongari-Kun—Mr. Pointy & the Four Guards in Tokyo’s fashionable Roppongi Hills development. This colourful, meticulously crafted work, modeled on a Buddha statue, was the fourth edition of a piece that had charmed many viewers outside Rockefeller Center New York City, in 2003.

Murakami also proved himself a significant force in the promotion of Japanese art and artists. In 2001 he founded an art production company, Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., with offices in both Japan and Brooklyn, N.Y. Through the company Murakami helped many young artists gain international exposure—by mounting exhibits, by producing and selling merchandise, and by organizing a biannual art festival and convention in Tokyo. In 2007 ©MURAKAMI was mounted at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and it subsequently traveled to a number of other major museums, including the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, in 2009. This retrospective exhibit of Murakami’s artistic activity included not only paintings, sculpture, film, and installation works but also Kaikai Kiki merchandise and fashion products for Louis Vuitton.

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